Man Made Mineral Fiber Emission from HVAC-components

Man made mineral fibers (MMMFs) that can cause irritation in upper respiratory tract, eyesand skin, can be emitted to indoor air from the HVAC system. A Finnish project was set up tomeasure fiber emissions and to develop design and materials of the HVAC systems toimprove indoor air quality. Within the project laboratory tests and field measurements werecarried out.As a result, new methods of testing the emission rates of the MMMFs from HVACcomponentshave been developed. With these methods HVAC-components can be classifiedwithin the Finnish Indoor Air Classification. For instance, in the vibration test the limit valuewill be 10 fibers/m3.Also, there were differences between fiber emissions in the studied buildings. The fiberconcentrations (length > 20 ?m) in the supply air ranged between 0.01 85 fibers/m3. Thebuilding with the highest emissions had also many workers suffering from respiratory andskin symptoms.